Jealousy over woman leads to stabbing at Pasco homeless shelter

A man standing in line for food at the Tri-City Union Gospel Mission was stabbed several times in an apparent fit of jealousy over his girlfriend.

Tomas Arroyo-Antonio, 31, allegedly was angry because he believes the woman dating the victim “belongs to him.”

He’s charged in Franklin County Superior Court with first-degree assault, and is in jail on $50,000 bail.

The victim, Stacey Weber Patton, survived the wounds to his leg, abdomen and shoulder.

Accordiing to court documents, Arroyo-Antonio of Pasco had been at the front of the mission’s food line on Aug. 17 when he noticed Patton farther back in the line.

Patton later told police at the hospital that Arroyo-Antonio started shouting profane names in Spanish at him, and then left the front of the line to approach him.

Arroyo-Antonio continued to curse at Patton. Then, he lunged at Patton and began stabbing him with a pocket knife in the left leg, documents said.

“Patton said he tried to defend himself but Tomas stabbed him in the same place in the leg several times,” said court documents. “Tomas then stabbed Patton in the abdomen in the lower right side and tried to twist the knife to get maximum damage.”

Arroyo-Antonio also cut the victim on the left shoulder, documents said.

Patton told police he was able to move away, and that is when he noticed that he was bleeding.

His attacker allegedly tried to lunge at him several more times until Patton got to safety, court documents said.

Police were called at 5:12 p.m. and found a bloody pocket knife.

Officers interviewed several people, and all of the witnesses corroborated Patton’s story that Arroyo-Antonio had been the aggressor, documents said.

Arroyo-Antonio refused to talk with officers about what happened.